of the time. Today the bell can be seen at the National Museum of Singapore. Of the 398 Revere bells cast, this is the only one found outside the USA.
Pineapple & rum and a sailors’ home We are passionate about rum, as you will see from the vast collection brands on display in the rum boutique that leads to The Bar at 15 Stamford. But the connection goes much deeper. Rum has always been associated with sailors, and our location was, in the past, home to a sailors’ boarding house for over 30 years before the construction of the Capitol Theatre began.
The grand hotel it was always meant to be I remember as if it was yesterday, standing on that pier in colonial Singapore, having just disembarked after a few weeks at sea. A sparse landscape lay before me - a church and a few impressive buildings of commerce - familiar Victorian architecture. It was slightly reminiscent of home in England, but for the palm trees and the oppressive heat. Horse and carts passed in the distance, and a rickshaw stood nearby waiting to transport me to my hotel accommodation, 15 Stamford Street, Oranje Building in European Town. I knew this to be an area dominated by residential houses and hotels servicing Singapore’s growing affluent European community. The year was 1905. I was excited as I’d heard that Singapore was a bustling metropolis and a bastion of free trade and enterprise, with a busy port that provided a central connection for all corners of the British Empire. There was plenty of opportunity for pioneers of trade like me. Sent by my company’s flagship store in Calcutta, India, I’d come to join the newly opened Singapore branch of Whiteaways, Laidlaw & Co., one of the most illustrious names in the retail sector at the height of the British Empire. Whiteaways had recently moved into Oranje Building, a property especially commissioned for them by Stephens, Paul & Co. On the approach down Stamford Road, I could see Oranje Building in the distance, a commanding structure with its magnificent white Victorian edifice that, even then, dominated the crossroads of Stamford Road and Hill Street and more than hinted at the luxury that lay within. The architectural work was familiar, that of Regent Alfred John Bidwell, renowned architect of the Raffles Hotel. I remember arriving at the entrance to Whiteaway’s on the ground floor of the corner building. The two floors above housed an open-plan office and staff accommodation and the other
wing compromised five shophouses separately leased. Whiteaways expanded at a frantic but not surprising pace, and within three years the store had moved to a larger location. With the company no longer leasing the upper stories, I was relocated to new lodgings still in European Town, so I have followed with interest the fate of my former lodgings over the years. Two years after we moved out, the building’s Armenian owners leased the upper floors to Raffles Hotel as an annexe to solve the latter’s accommodation issues before renting the rooms out yet again as residential apartments three years later. It wasn’t until 1921 when Seth Paul, one of the owners, died that his brother, Thaddeus Paul, rented the building out yet again to the owners of Raffles Hotel, the Sarkie Brothers. But this time, they closed the building down and renovated it. The next I saw, it was reopened as The Grosvenor Hotel. But even though The Grosvenor Hotel ran as a separate entity from Raffles Hotel, it was still informally known to us locally as The Annexe or Raffles Annexe, as it had been before. Old habits die hard. After 1926, when the Sarkie’s declining business meant they had to let go of the lease, we saw 15 Stamford Road go through yet another round of renovation to reopen as Stamford Hotel and Restaurant under the management of GM Gregory, a fellow who had previously worked at Raffles Hotel and the Grosvenor Hotel. But that arrangement did not last long. A year later it was taken over by Aseb Arathoon, and it became The Grosvenor Hotel once again. By this time, the building had fallen into disrepair. It was a sad state of affairs, so you can imagine my joy when I heard in 1933 that Seth Paul’s daughter, Clara van Hien, had taken over and was about to make substantial renovations. I was pleased to see the Oranje Hotel
open in 1934, especially as she had kept the original name of the building. I left Singapore with my family in 1940 but I heard that Clara operated the hotel successfully until the Japanese occupation. After World War II, she converted the building into private apartments once again. This she ran successfully all the way till 1963, when she eventually sold to Basco Enterprises, who modernised the building and reopened it for commercial retail lease as Stamford House. Through the years, as technology has improved communications, I’ve been able to follow events in Singapore with interest, and also get updates from my granddaughter who now works and lives there. It was touch and go for a while when I heard there were plans to demolish Stamford House to make way for road infrastructure improvements as the new MRT line was laid down. I was so relieved when the news came out that it had been earmarked for conservation. Now I can go to my grave knowing that whatever happens, my treasured 15 Stamford Road will be well looked after. Who knows, they may make a grand hotel of it once again. I think that’s what 15 Stamford Road was meant to be.
We also take inspiration from the story of Joseph Balestier. While he served as the first US Consul to Singapore, he established a vast 89-hectare sugarcane plantation in a 405-hectare area of land he leased that is now known as the Balestier area of Singapore.
A bell Our bar staff ring the bell at The Bar at 15 Stamford every 8PM. This ritual is performed in tribute to an important part of the history of the site where the Capitol Building stands and its past residents: Joseph Balestier, the first US Consul to Singapore; and his wife Maria, daughter of American Civil War midnight rider Paul Revere, silversmith and manufacturer of the famed Liberty Bell. The couple’s home before they moved to the Balestier plantation was located on the very site on which the Capitol Building stands today.
THE STORY OF A BELL, PINEAPPLE AND RUM, A SAILORS’ HOME, AND A TIGER The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Singapore has a rich and chequered history that involves among others a bell, pineapple and rum, a sailors’ home and, yes, even a tiger. These characters are integral to the history of the site on which the hotel now stands and play such important roles in bringing the brand story of Hotel. Singapore’s Sailors’ Home was immortalised in three novels by renowned novelist Joseph Conrad.
Maria donated a Revere Bell to St Andrew’s Church (today’s St Andrew’s Cathedral, located across the road from the hotel). She had it shipped from Boston in 1843 on the condition that it was rung at 8pm every night for five minutes to remind sailors to head back to their ships before curfew and locals to clear the unsafe streets
While the Balestier plantation was mostly dedicated to the growing of sugarcane to process sugar for trade, it also produced some notable by-products. Faced with barriers to trading sugar in some territories, Joseph used the sugarcane to distil rum as an additional source of income and also planted pineapples around the plantation boundaries to shore up the soil. Judging by an advertisement that was published in the newspapers of the time, the first rum batch went to market in 1840. Sadly, the plantation crops eventually failed due to flooding from the monsoon rains. This was the final straw for Joseph, who had recently lost his wife, Maria, three short years after the death of their only son. Already in debt and unable to find a buyer for the plantation land, Joseph left Singapore in 1848 a broken man. While he briefly revisited the Far East in 1849 on consular duties, he returned to the US in 1851, remarried and remained in the US until his death in York, Pennsylvania in 1858, aged 70. We created our PLANTATION 1840 cocktail in Joseph Balestier’s honour.